In the early 1960s, Medgar Evers served as a field secretary for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and became a target for racial hatred in Jackson, Mississippi. After Medgar was slugged while aboard a bus and almost run over by a car, the Evers family home was firebombed on May 28, 1963. Then just before midnight on June 11, Medgar was assassinated in his driveway by a sniper from a vacant lot across the street. Medgar died the next morning and his wife Myrlie moved the family to California where she continued as a civil rights advocate (and was eventually elected as Chair of the NAACP). The family rented the property for 30 years before donating it to Tougaloo College who restored the house and sold it to the National Park Service (NPS) in 2020.
In 1956, the Evers family chose this new house because it did not have a front door, but rather an entrance on the side off the covered carport for security. After you enter the house from the back door, be sure to find where the bullet hole is still in the wall to the kitchen. You will also notice that the children’s beds were on the floor below the window level for safety, and Medgar trained them to crawl to the bathroom in case of an attack. There is a four-page Junior Ranger booklet for the site that can be completed during a short visit, which takes a serious yet positive tone for this important civil rights site. Still, it made it on our list of the Top 10 Most Depressing National Park Service Sites.
Best Trail
There is a sidewalk through Myrlie’s Garden, a community garden less than one-tenth of a mile from the house where interpretive signs on the wooden fence tell the life story of the Evers.
Photographic Opportunity
In Jackson’s Elraine Subdivision, the Evers’ house is one of 36 ranch-style houses built as the first planned middle-class subdivision for African Americans in Mississippi after World War II.
Peak Season
Spring and fall
Hours
Closed Sundays and Mondays, and noon to 1 p.m. for lunch
There is street parking available in the neighborhood, but rangers prefer that you park at Myrlie’s Garden and walk over.
Camping
There are three free NPS campgrounds along the 444-mile Natchez Trace Parkway, which runs through Jackson, Mississippi. To the east on Interstate 20, Bienville National Forest also has camping options.
Entrance is behind the houseChildren’s beds at ground levelBullet hole in wall
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Charles Young was born to enslaved parents in 1864 and went on to become only the third African American to graduate from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point despite being the target of constant insults and social isolation. He was commissioned an Army officer, serving with the “Buffalo Soldiers,” so named by American Indians because their hair and ferocious fighting style was similar to the bison. Young became the first African American to serve as the Superintendent of a National Park when he commanded troops at General Grant (now Kings Canyon) and Sequoia National Parks in 1903. Four years later, Young and his family purchased the 1839-built house he called “Youngsholm” after teaching military science at nearby Wilberforce University for over a decade. His military career took him to the Philippines, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Mexico, and Liberia, but he was not allowed to fight in Europe during World War I. In 1922, Young died while serving as a military attaché in Africa and after a campaign by his family and notable African-American celebrities his body was reinterred at Arlington National Cemetery.
A “15-month renovation” of Youngsholm began in October 2021 to restore the house and add an elevator, which in typical government fashion was not finished until April 2024. There is a film focused on his life as a civil rights trailblazer that is played on the second floor of the house, which you can also watch online before visiting. We also recommend the 2023 PBS special Buffalo Soldiers that focuses extensively on Charles Young. None of the rooms inside Youngsholm are furnished, but there are many informational signs about Young and the Buffalo Soldiers. In addition, 30-minute talks on a variety of topics are given on most weekends by park rangers and there is a Junior Ranger booklet for the site.
Best Trail
None
Photographic Opportunity
A short drive across Highway 42 from Youngsholm takes you to Wilberforce University where there is an Ohio Historical Marker telling the story of Charles Young’s connection with the school.
Youngsholm is located right off paved Highway 42 near the campus of Wilberforce University.
Camping
The scenic Hocking Hills State Park has 172 campsites (reservations recommended) and is one of the most popular places to camp in Ohio. Hueston Woods State Park offers 490 campsites, 59 cabins, and a lodge.
Originally named Nutten Island by the Dutch who settled New Amsterdam in 1624, this 172-acre island off Manhattan was later set aside for the exclusive use of the British royal governors of New York. The indigenous Lenape called it Paggank (“Nut Island”) because of its chestnut, hickory, and oak trees. After 200 years of military use by the Army and Coast Guard, Governors Island was retired in 1996. Like nearby Castle Clinton National Monument, Fort Jay and Castle Williams date to pre-War of 1812 and were saved from demolition in 1901 by forward-thinking Secretary of War Elihu Root. Over the decades, the island served as a Civil War prison, a muster area for troops during the Mexican-American War and World War II, the largest Coast Guard base in the nation for its final 30 years, and runway for Wilbur Wright’s 1909 flight around the Statue of Liberty. Governors Island National Monument is part of a 90-acre National Historic Landmark District that contains the commanding officer’s quarters known as the Admiral’s House.
Private boats are not allowed, so the only way to get onto Governors Island is by ferry and it is only open to visitors from Memorial Day weekend through September. From the Battery Maritime Building in Lower Manhattan you will dock at Soissons Landing near Fort Jay. There may also be weekend ferry service from Brooklyn Bridge Park Pier 6 and Wall Street/Pier 11 that both land at Yankee Pier near the South Battery. During special events, living history demonstrations celebrate the island’s military heritage. Near Soissons Landing, be sure to enter Castle Williams and Fort Jay, which have interpretive signs from the National Park Service.
Best Trail
Most visitors do not go much south of the Parade Ground, but almost the entire island is open for walking or biking (rentals available) on the old roads.
Photographic Opportunity
On a clear day, the ferry boat and island both afford incredible views of the New York City skyline, Ellis Island, and Statue of Liberty.
Ferry tickets cost about $5 roundtrip for an adult.
Road Conditions
Roads are heavily trafficked in New York City and there is no designated parking for the National Park Service site, so we recommend you take the subway to access the ferry.
Camping
Collective Retreats has glamping tents and suites on their private property on the west side of Governors Island. Click here to visit their website for details.
Brooklyn BatteryCastle Williams modelCastle WilliamsCastle WilliamsCastle WilliamsGovernors Island National Monument mapStaten Island Ferry passing Ellis IslandBoarding the ferryBack in New York City
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Following the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an executive order authorizing the detention of more than 110,000 U.S. citizens of Japanese descent at ten concentration camps in the contiguous United States. At Tule Lake War Relocation Center, 7,400 acres were enclosed by barbwire to hold about 12,000 people in northeast California. Once a loyalty questionnaire was distributed throughout the ten camps, those considered disloyal to the U.S. government were all shipped to the renamed Tule Lake Segregation Center, which held 18,789 inmates at its peak. Overcrowding, harassment, beatings, and a fatal farm accident led to riots and mass demonstrations, and martial law was declared from November 13, 1943 to January 15, 1944. This camp was the last to be closed on March 20, 1946, months after the end of the war. It was named a National Historic Landmark in 2006, and two years later became one of nine sites within World War II Valor in the Pacific National Monument (which included Pearl Harbor National Memorial). When that was disbanded in 2019, Tule Lake National Monument was created.
Tulelake-Butte Valley Fairgrounds Museum, Tule Lake Segregation Center prison
Must-Do Activity
Most of the buildings at Tule Lake Segregation Center were moved elsewhere following the war. One of the few remaining structures is the prison, which is only accessible on ranger-guided tours offered Memorial Day to Labor Day on Thursdays through Sundays (call ahead for required reservations). The concrete jail had six cells to hold 24 men, but incarcerated over 100 at one time mostly outside in Army tents used as unheated punishment quarters. The prison is always visible from the National Park Service (NPS) visitor center off Highway 139. It is worth getting a tour to go inside to see original graffiti from inmates and the reinstalled metal doors that were purchased by a private citizen in the 1940s and kept at their farm for decades. Tulelake-Butte Valley Fairgrounds Museum (fee) has a one-hour audio tour and there are online virtual tours that show several sites within Tule Lake National Monument, including the inside of the jail prior to the restoration.
Best Trail
There are no designated trails there, but from the NPS visitor center near Newell you can photograph the rock formation known as Peninsula/Castle Rock (solely managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service). It is also visible while checking out the rock art at Petroglyph Point within Lava Beds National Monument.
Photographic Opportunity
The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was stationed at Camp Tulelake from 1935 to 1942, constructing 23 buildings and repairing canals. Several small groups of Japanese Americans were held at Camp Tulelake to separate them from the general population at Tule Lake Segregation Center. Later in the war, Italian and German POWs were stationed there before the buildings were transferred to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Currently, tours of Camp Tulelake are not available due to ongoing preservation work, but you can photograph it through the fence on Hill Road and hike to bird viewing blinds in Tule Lake National Wildlife Refuge.
Ranger-guided tours require a reservation, but they are free. There is an entrance fee for the museum at Tulelake-Butte Valley Fairgrounds.
Road Conditions
Highway 139 and Hill Road are paved, but most of the roads through the former Tule Lake Segregation Center and Tule Lake National Wildlife Refuge are unpaved.
Tulelake-Butte Valley Fairgrounds MuseumTiff at Tulelake-Butte Valley Fairgrounds MuseumTulelake-Butte Valley Fairgrounds MuseumPeninsula/Castle RockCrop dusterTiff walking to the prisonInside the prisonHistoric graffitiHistoric graffiti in JapaneseNPS visitor centerTule Lake National Wildlife Refuge mapReflections on Tule Lake
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Best time of year: Summer for the state fair and access to the northern lakes
We recently published our guidebook 50 States of Great: Road Trip Guide to America, so we decided to start a new type of blog post where we create a travel itinerary for all 50 states, in addition to our usual National Forest and National Park entries. After starting with Kansas, Georgia, Idaho, and Rhode Island, we decided to do a state that is part Midwest and part North Woods. We made an ambitious seven-day plan starting in the southern Minnesota, with plenty of options to extend the trip.
Located in the small town of Austin, this free museum is full of interactive exhibits and photo opportunities, but the best part is that it does not take itself too seriously. Even if you do not like to eat the canned “spiced ham” product, you will come to appreciate its significance to World War II history and pop culture, as well as its amazing gift shop with more branded products than you can imagine.
Niagara Cave is a privately-owned show cave named for its 60-foot-tall underground waterfall that is only viewable on guided tours. Not far away, Forestville/Mystery Cave State Park contains the state’s longest cave (47 degrees year round) which also offers guided tours.
If you come into the state from the southwest corner, consider a stop at a spot that people have come for 2,000 years to mine the red quartzite rock (also known as catlinite). The soft sedimentary stone is relatively easy to carve into smoking pipes and effigies. April through October, you can watch American Indian carvers at the National Park Service (NPS) museum demonstrate how to sculpt this soft yet durable stone into hollow pipes and other beautiful ornaments, some of which you can buy in the gift shop.
Fans of the author’s “Little House” series of books will want to see a replica of the Ingalls’ home in Walnut Grove and some of the family’s historic heirlooms.
Indoor shopping malls are still thriving in the Twin Cities (Minneapolis-St. Paul) metropolitan area, perhaps due to the cold and snowy winter weather. The most famous is the Mall of America with its indoor amusement park and 520 stores, making it the largest mall in the western hemisphere (and eleventh largest in the world).
This park follows 72 miles of the great river’s course through Minnesota, from busy metropolitan sections in the Twin Cities to secluded stretches of water where it reaches its confluence with the Saint Croix National Scenic Riverway. In downtown Minneapolis, Minnehaha Regional Park contains its namesake falls celebrated in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s Song of Hiawatha. Nearby, St. Anthony Falls is the only true waterfall along the entire length of the Mississippi River, now controlled by a lock and dam.
Optional stop at University of Minnesota Golden Gophers’ football game
We saw wild turkeys wandering around this beautiful campus that sits on a bluff east of the Mississippi River. Nobody seems to be exactly sure what a golden gopher is (possibly a thirteen-lined ground squirrel), but their mascot Goldie is the cutest in all of college football. Huntington Bank Stadium has one of the best pregame areas with plenty of photo ops and a pep rally held outside the hockey arena, plus we got free Culver’s custard, a clear bag giveaway, and Mystic Lake casino provided free towels and “spinny video thing.” The football team typically schedules their home opener on the Thursday before Labor Day during the Minnesota State Fair.
You will need all day to visit America’s best state fair that is held annually the 12 days before Labor Day, welcoming more than two-million visitors annually. The fair has the standard carnival rides, butter sculptures, farm animals, and artwork, as well as stages where musicians, comedians, and magicians perform throughout the day. Some of the unique food offerings include hotdish-on-a-stick, poutine, fried cheese curds, pronto pup, fried pickles, pork chop-on-a-stick, and fried buckeyes (chocolate and peanut butter candy). Since it started in 1979, Sweet Martha’s Cookie Jar has been overfilling buckets of fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies for customers, making up to 200,000 cookies an hour. To wash all that down, you might want to visit one of the stands offering all-you-can-drink milk.
If you are still hungry after the Minnesota State Fair then you probably didn’t do it right, but we will make one of our rare restaurant recommendations for this unique spot in downtown Minneapolis with interesting décor and really good food (try the poutine or walleye bites).
Day 4
Paul Bunyan Expressway
The legendary giant lumberjack Paul Bunyan is a big deal in Minnesota and he has statues honoring him in many towns along the Paul Bunyan Expressway. The 18-foot-tall statues in Bemidji were originally built in 1937 to honor these larger-than-life heroes and continue to be an essential roadside attraction. In Brainerd, Paul Bunyan Land is an entire amusement park built around a 26-foot-tall talking statue of Paul and 19-foot Babe, the latter refurbished after it blew over in a 2006 windstorm.
The Lost 40 is 144 acres of old-growth red and white pine forest that was never logged due to a surveying error that mapped the area as part of Coddington Lake in 1882. The oldest tree here is more than 250 years old and can be seen on an easy one-mile loop trail with interpretive signs. The trailhead is located east of Blackduck on well-signed back roads that are also popular for snowshoeing in the winter. Nearby, Camp Rabideau is perhaps the best preserved Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) camp left from the 1930s, with free guided tours in the summer.
Lake Itasca is considered the headwaters of the Mississippi River and is located just west of Highway 71 at the beginning of the 2,069-mile-long Great River Road that goes all the way to Louisiana.
Day 5
Roadside Sculptures
Driving north on Highway 71, there is seemingly another great roadside attraction located every few miles. We saw the statues of Uncle Dan Campbell in Big Falls, Jack Pine Savage in Littlefork, the world’s largest crow in Belgrade, and a giant black duck in the town of Blackduck. Right outside Voyageurs National Park, which surrounds Lake Kabetogama, was our favorite—a giant walleye with a saddle for riding. If Kabetogama seems like a mouthful, rest assured that everyone, including park rangers, simply calls it “Lake Kab.”
The park is famous for its manmade destinations, including Kettle Falls Hotel, Hoist Bay Resort, and the unique sculptures at Ellsworth Rock Gardens. Try to get out on one of Minnesota’s 10,000 lakes via a ranger-led tour or take your own boat to one of the shoreline campsites inaccessible by car (permit required). Reservations can be made for the ranger-guided North Canoe Voyage that lets passengers paddle a 26-foot canoe, just like the French-Canadian “voyageurs” of old.
Day 6
Kawishiwi Falls in Ely
The little town of Ely is the gateway to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (see below), but even if you are just passing through be sure to make the short hike to Kawishiwi Falls below the dam on Garden Lake.
Gray wolves (called timber wolves regionally) reside in the North Woods and while a few lucky travelers might hear them howling, your best bet to see one is at the Wolf Center. It also has a section dedicated to Sigurd Olson, a talented local author and naturalist.
French-Canadian voyageurs had to walk their canoes and goods along an eight-mile-long portage to bypass the rapids on the Pigeon River. In 1784, the end of the trail on the edge of Lake Superior became the site of the North West Company headquarters where they held an annual rendezvous, where today visitors can walk around the reconstructed buildings and talk with the costumed reenactors during the summer.
Optional stop at Two Harbors
North of Duluth, the North Shore Scenic Drive passes through the town of Two Harbors where there is a giant rooster at Weldon’s Gifts and a huge statue of Pierre the Voyageur outside the Earthwood Inn. If you press the speaker button at the statue’s base, Pierre will tell you all about the history of the region, but he never explains why he is not wearing any pants.
In addition to encompassing the state’s highest mountain, Superior National Forest also offers scenic drives on the Gunflint Trail (County Road 12), Fernberg Road (State Route 169), and Echo Trail (County Road 116). Vermilion Gorge Trail is an easy 1.5-mile one-way hike to a narrow canyon cut through Canadian Shield rock in the small community of Crane Lake (on the east side of Voyageurs National Park). Not far away down a dirt road, a short trail leads to Vermilion Falls where the same river cuts a narrow channel through the rock.
Permits for the peak season can be hard to come by for the world’s premiere destination for backcountry canoeing, so plan ahead. This one-million-acre preserve has more than 1,000 lakes with over 1,500 miles of canoe routes and 2,200 designated backcountry campsites. In addition to its famous water routes with numerous portages, a few overland trails exist like the 12-mile Angleworm Trail and the 39-mile Kekekebic Trail, an official part of the North Country National Scenic Trail.
Raven About The Parks 